Aftermath
by bookwormLynae
Summary: In the wake of the wreckage of CA:TWS, the Avengers form a plan to to continue to protect the world on their own terms.
1. Chapter 1

"JARVIS…." Steve requested, leaning back against the wall of the elevator.

"Yes, sir." JARVIS answered.

"Wherever the most people are, please. And the guests are good." He closed his eyes, blinking against a headache.

"Everyone is in the common area watching the news." JARVIS informed them. "Sir is rather angry at the 'mindless destruction of "his" helicarriers' and Dr. Banner is slightly agitated by the noise levels. Agent Barton is worried about why no one has contacted them, and Prince Thor is causing a thunderstorm over the Atlantic."

"Oh gosh." Steve breathed, levering himself upright. "This is gonna be great."

Sam snickered, "Can't wait to see it, man."

Natasha rotated her shoulder with a grimace, then smiled. "Me either." She caught the Captain's betrayed glance. "I'm hurt." she said slyly. "Can't expect the injured woman to do the explaining."

The elevator noiselessly deposited them on the main floor of the residential area. They slipped through the huge kitchen, Natasha helping herself to a bottle of water, and tossing Sam a Coke.

"….haven't seen or heard from them in five days. I'm just saying they could be hurt." Clint's "losing-my-patience-with-Stark" voice explained.

"I don't give a rat's rear end!" Tony screeched. "The two of them, or at least Cap, and that flying…thing ruined my helicarriers. I've been feeding Fury designs on Project whatever-it-is for months, and they blow them out of the sky! I don't care if they're dying, or what, but they better drag their sorry butts back here and explain where the heck Fury is, who metal-arm dude is, and why SHIELD headquarters, and those helicarriers are smoking rubble!"

Bruce's gentler voice tried to calm Tony. "I'm sure we're top priority." he insisted, without looking up. "It'll be….oh darn." he trailed off. Tony bent over his shoulder, and Clint leaned over the arm of the chair.

"What the actual heck?" Clint breathed. "This is everything."

Tony swore angrily. "JARVIS, damage control?"

"I'm afraid that is impossible, sir." JARVIS answered.

Tony swore again. "Every cover, every resource, undercover people, every darn thing, all over the internet."

Thunder rumbled in the distance and Thor spoke for the first time. "What does this mean?" he asked solemnly.

Bruce sighed, finally looking up from the chaos of information spilling across the screen of his tablet. "SHIELD is useless. All of their secrets are where everyone can see them. Anybody who isn't dead may very well be on a kill list. We," he said, gesturing around. "May be immune to that for various reasons. But the two that were on the ground are in worse trouble than we thought."

"Fine." Tony said. "JARVIS, please initiate location search for Steve Rogers and Natasha Romanoff."

"Found." JARVIS replied.

"Where?" Tony yelped, whitening.

"Behind you, sir." JARVIS answered flatly.

Everyone in the room spun to face the three new arrivals. Sam waved sheepishly, while Natasha threw herself down on the couch next to Bruce. Steve nodded Sam toward an empty chair, and took his own seat. Tony waved the TV off, to the accompaniment of a sharp flash of lightening. He rolled his eyes at Thor, who grudgingly fell onto a convenient beanbag.

"Explain. Now." Tony demanded, flopping down next to the still-silent Hawkeye.

So Steve explained, from Sam to Sitwell, explaining SHIELD and HYDRA, Fury's "death", Zola's algorithm and the intention of the helicarriers, and the Winter Soldier and Bucky, and Pierce's perfidy, and finished with a bare bones account of the battle, up until he awoke in the hospital with Sam and Natasha at either side.

When he finished, the listeners sat in silence for a few moments. Steve closed his eyes and leaned his head back. Bruce looked Natasha over carefully. She seemed every bit as exhausted. Despite her casual posture, she was unnaturally cautious and stiff, and obviously favoring her left shoulder. The various bruises and cuts on Steve's face were fading rapidly. They looked as though they had been inflicted a week or two before, not eight hours. But his fingers were nearly piercing holes in the leather of his armrests, and the frown line between his brows was creased deeper than it had been before. Bruce's assessment of the new-comer was based on no prior acquaintance, but his first impression was that the man was a soldier—he was hurt only superficially, and would recover, physically and emotionally, much faster than Steve and Natasha.

Tony, per usual, was first to break the silence. "So, what've we got? Hill, Fury, who else?"

Natasha blinked at him, calling him to explain.

He stood, pulling out his phone and scrolling through files. "Look, SHIELD is now very last-year. There is basically nobody on earth who can do anything undercover. Half of the world is out for blood. We've got, what? Once council member still alive, and not a very bright one at that. So one who won't try to take any control. And SI happens to need an expansion in their Human Resources department." he waved his phone. "See, SHIELD is not salvageable. It just isn't. But I should be able to do a little bit of tweaking with some of what you released, and whammo; Maria Hill, Nick Fury, whoever we've got that we know we can trust are clean enough to get by."

Clint nodded. "Re-start SHIELD. But not really, just as a….branch of Stark Industries. It'd be different, but we'd still have some of the same resources and intelligence."

Steve lifted his head. "SHIELD isn't all there is of HYDRA. And if we even start something like that, they'll know."

Bruce smiled. "Nothing they can prove. It would be less manpower and more intelligence. No armies, helicarriers, nuclear bombs, just us. They become the brains, the Avengers become the muscle."

"Exactly!" Tony exclaimed. "We couldn't do everything, at least, not at first, only the big stuff that we could justify the Avengers interference, but eventually, get some new names, new faces, and we could have some new teams of undercover people. It'd be smaller and more selective, and we wouldn't get burned."

Natasha smirked. "We finish HYDRA first, then find Barnes, then we expand."

Thor nodded. "Indeed, it sounds an admirable goal. When do we begin?"

Steve did not move, but one corner of his mouth twitched upward. "Probably after we clear it with Pepper." he suggested blandly.

Tony's smile slid from his face. "Yeah, we probably should mention it. JARVIS, where is Pep?"

"She is in her office, and has been viewing the live feed of this since the announcement of the Captain and his companions. She asks me to tell you that she approves of your plan as long as the Avengers, and not her, take chief responsibility."

"Good!" Tony exclaimed. "Are we all in on this? We've already seen how fast something like this can go bad, but are we going to do it right? It'll be dangerous, and I won't blame anyone who chooses to back out."

Steve was first to answer. "I'm in."

Natasha nodded, "I don't think I have a choice. I have to clean up the mess I helped make."

Bruce sighed, "I don't know how much help I can be, but whatever I can do."

Clint was the one to hesitate. "What if we become the same? We do this and become basically the most powerful people in the world. What's to say that we won't completely screw this up?"

It was Thor that was the first to answer. "We will make mistakes, though I pray they are few. And we are not truly good people. We cannot guarantee that we will not fall prey to corruption and greed. But our strength lies in our numbers. If one falls, there are others to pick us back up. I will join you all in this quest."

Clint sighed, "Yes, I'll do it. But this is a ton of responsibility. If we do this, and do it right, we'll be one of the most powerful organizations in the world under only the authority of seven or so morally dubious individuals. We won't be accountable to councils or governments, just our own useless consciences."

He sobered them all. It was not simply an enjoyable project, but a massive undertaking with potentially universal consequences.

Sam finally spoke from the corner he was resting in. "Hey, I don't know if you want me or not, but you've got me."

Tony turned and looked at him. "You're the flying thing, aren't you?" he asked. "And an ex-soldier, right?"

"Falcon, Tony. Not flying thing." Natasha stated drily.

"Right, yes, whatever." Tony muttered, waving his hand in her direction. "You know I could build way better wings than that with one hand tied behind my back?"

Sam regarded him with amusement. "Does that mean I'm in?"

Tony spun and looked to the rest. Natasha and Steve nodded sharply and the rest agreed.

"Okay, yup, you're in. But I get to build you new wings." Tony insisted.

Sam shrugged. His other set had been completely destroyed, and the man was supposedly a genius….

Tony did something on the coffee table, and it became a holographic screen. He laid his cell phone on it, downloading all of SHIELD's released information to it. The group moved, settling themselves around the coffee table.

"Here, here, and here." Tony began, poking coordinates, "Are other bases linked with HYDRA." He poked and twisted one, and a 3D diagram of the base sprang up. "Cap, your show." he said, shoving the floating building in the Captain's direction.

Steve spun it slowly in his hand, noting exits and entrances, and watching the information about security clearance and guard postings scroll beneath it. He took a deep breath. They were beginning something, and there was no going back. He pulled slightly, so the building expanded and took up the entire table.

"Here is what we do….."


	2. Update:Sequel Up!

Update: There is now a sequel to Aftermath entitled Equilibrium. I also have at least one more story in the same 'verse finished, and others started. However, I am going to continue to post them as one-shots when I am finished with them as opposed to having one long multi-chaptered and unfinished fic. Also, they are not necessarily being published in order. I will have notes in the blurb or the beginning letting you know where each story fits. If you want to keep up with this as-of-yet unnamed series, follow me instead of the individual stories.


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